At the Gates
by Thuvia
Summary: Two stories, which occur at the Gates of Heaven, and explain some of my questions about the Christian faith
1. Judge Me Fairly

I sat before the gates, waiting. I looked around me. Evidently one of the religions had it right. I was _dead_, but here I was, my mind alive.

Then He came up to me.

He was very, very tall, and stately, with long silver hair and a silver beard. He looked quite a bit like my father, only older and more dignified. "So you are here, my child," He said, with a voice like thunder.

I nodded. "Umif it's not too rude to askwho are you?" I asked.

"I am the God whom the Christians know."

I nodded. "Whathappens now?" I asked. If he really was God

"Now you make a choice," He told me.

"A choice?"

"Do you accept My son as your savior?"

I stared at him. I knew what the correct answer was. But I couldn't give it. "No. I can't."

I expected to find myself in Hell the next instant. I didn't. He merely stared at me, and asked, "Why?"

"Because I don't believe in scapegoats."

He was still looking at me. I had a feeling that he wanted me to keep talking. "What I did, _I_ did," I said firmly. "Not Him. I'm not a child anymore, to have my parents pick up my messes for me. I am a sinner, and I know it. But I have to pay for it. Maybe your son loves me enough to die for me; but, if I'm to be worth anything, I have to be big enough that I can clean up after myself. So punish me for what I've done. Don't give me the option of unloading my sins onto someone else."

"You are a sinner," He said. "You have sinned against Me enough that you should by rights be damned for all eternity. I offer you a chance at salvation, though you don't deserve it. Why do you refuse Me?"

It was then that I got angry.

"I refuse your oh-so-merciful offer because you shouldn't have to make it in the first place! You made the rules, and You made us. I know You think that we are so far below You that all of us, even newborn babies, are so sinful that we deserve damnation. Perhaps You're right; but if we're so low, it's because You made us that way. You didn't have to; You made Your angels holy. Why couldn't You have done the same to us?"

"You would not truly be human if you were not sinful."

"Would that be so bad?" I asked. I turned away and stared at my feet for a minute. "It didn't have to be this way, did it?" I asked quietly. I turned back to Him and stared Him in the face.

"Who made the rules, God? Aren't You the Almighty? Are you not all-powerful?"

  
"I am."

"Well, then, You decide what sins merit eternal damnation. If You want to forgive us, and let us into Heaven, why didn't You just do it?" I raised my voice. "No. No. If You truly are that unfair-if You truly would damn us, for being what You made us, I can never serve You. If the punishment You have ordained for being born human is eternity in Hell-and You were willing to murder Your son so you could change your mind without having to admit that you were wrong, or that we aren't inherently sinful-then damn me to Hell, now, because I will not let Your son bring me into Heaven by propagating such a ridiculous system as that!"

"You do not understand," He said. "I offer you again-will you let My son bathe you of your sins, and enter into My kingdom?"

"No. I am what I am. If you accept me, accept me as a sinner. Don't try to make my life, sins and all, untrue."

"Adrienne, please accept," said a voice behind me.

I turned. There was no mistaking this newcomer, either. 

"I died so that you would be forgiven," he said. "Please don't make that sacrifice be in vain."

"It shouldn't have been necessary," I said. "I may be an idealist, but it shouldn't have been necessary. You shouldn't have had to die so that He would forgive us for being what He made us. Jesus, don't ask this of me. Don't ask me to play the system. Don't ask me to serve a being who demands things like that."

He took my face between his hands. "I love you, Adrienne," he said. 

I closed my eyes. "Send me away from here," I demanded.

There was a wind around me. I opened my eyes.


	2. Free Will and Free Information

Apparently the Christians were right. I stood at the Gates of Heaven, staring at a man wearing a halo who could only be St. Peter. Beside me sat my sister, Anne.

"Arie," Anne said, "I know we haven't been the best of friends, but I want to hug you one last time, before I never see you again."

"What makes you think you'll never see me again?" I asked.

"Because I am Christian, and you are not," she said. "I have accepted my Lord God as my savior, as you have not, and so I will be let into Heaven and you will not."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because Heaven cannot tolerate imperfection," she said.

I sighed. "Either imperfect humans can be admitted into heaven," I said, "or we cannot. One or the other. Either Jesus's death opened the way to us, or it did not. If God can let Christians in, then he can let imperfect people in, and so he can let agnostics in."

"But you chose not to be let in," Anne said. "You chose not to love God, and so you chose not to enter Heaven. He will not violate your free will by taking that choice away from you."

I turned to her suddenly. "Anne," I said, "Do you understand freedom of information? Academic freedom, freedom of the press, the 'right to know'-that sort of thing? It's one of the most precious and important freedoms. Do you know why?"

"No," she said. "Why?"

"Because without correct information, free will is impossible," I said. "Look: suppose someone were to feed someone else a dish full of something they were violently allergic to, and that person went into anaphylactic shock and died. Would they be guilty of murder?"

"It depends," she said.

"On what?"

"On whether they knew that they were allergic to it," she said.

"Exactly. Now, here's my point: free will is nonexistent without information. If the first person knew that the second person was violently allergic to whatever it was, then they were freely choosing to poison them. If they did not, then they did not have the freedom to choose whether to kill them or not. It would be an accident.

"Similarly, if you know God exists, then you can meaningfully choose whether to follow Him or not. But if you don't, then your "choice" is meaningless. You can only guess which of the myriad gods that humanity has worshipped over the millennia are real. Then you either get lucky, and guess the right one, or you make a mistake. Either way, there's no real choice involved.

"Thus, if your God had such respect for our 'free will', and also required us to make a choice about how we interact with him during our lives, then He would have been forced to demonstrate to us that he existed, and to have demonstrated it more convincingly than all the 'false gods' that we might have worshipped." I stepped back and spread my hands.

"But you have proof," Anne said. "Read your Bible. It says in the Lazarus story that Moses and the Prophets should be enough to make someone virtuous. It says right there that someone who doesn't believe in Moses and the Prophets will not be convinced by someone who rises from the dead."

I sighed. "Okay, first of all, I would have been persuaded by a miracle, even though I was not persuaded by Moses and the Prophets. That verse does not apply to me. Second, it's not meant to."  


She blinked. "How do you figure that?" she asked.

"Read Luke 16 again, if you can. It's a lecture to the Pharisees. The people on the receiving end already were supposedly Jewish, and supposedly followers of Moses and the Prophets. They weren't agnostics who needed convincing; they were Jews who thought they followed the Prophets but didn't."

I took a breath. "Second, that chapter is a lecture on morality. It's about not stealing from your master, and about not leaving a hurt homeless man in the street. It's not about believing that Jesus is the Son of God. I give blood, I'm nice to people, I don't cheat on my taxes. I do what that story says to do. It may say to love God; well, I love my neighbor, and if it is true that Jesus sacrificed himself for me, then I'm very grateful. Are you so sure that I don't love God?"

She sighed. "I hope for your sake that you're right," she said.

"Yes, me too," I said.

Behind us, I heard the gates open.


	3. Author's Note

This "story" is a collection of (currently two) stories I wrote about questions I have about the Christian religion. They happen before the Gates of Heaven.

I don't expect that I will be able to finish any of these stories. They end where they do because I'm not sure where the protagonist will be sent. I don't know if Adrienne will be judged, on her own crimes, to be unworthy of Heaven. I don't know if Arie will be damned for her agnosticism in her life. 

So, if you're waiting for more of each of these stories, don't; I have no idea how I could continue them.


End file.
